Thursday, November 20, 2008

My very first self-imposed life drawing class since returning from NZ, done yesterday.

I'm also here to announce that I've got a new sketchbook on Conceptart.org, too. I will probably just post any life drawing I do on the sketchbook instead of here on the blog... I think it makes more sense that way. The link is on the right of the page.

The New Zealand workshop was absolutely brilliant, I really could not have asked for a better experience. I learned a heckuva lot, the instructors were fantastic to watch and very helpful with all of our questions. They were all very approachable and open in the way they shared their working processes.

I've come back to Melbourne really really inspired. In particular, I think I gained a rejuvinated interest in character design, and this has a lot to do with Wes Burt and his sketchbooks. I can't even describe how good these things were... I could have stared at them for hours on end. His knowledge of anatomy was unbelievable (everything in his 3 sketchbooks were drawn from memory, no ref) and his designs and poses/weighting of figures were amazing - functional, innovative, so cleanly executed - and these were his sketchbooks!

Here's some of the sketches I did while in NZ. Since returning, I've decided to dedicate some time each day to do some sketching, in the hope of one day being able to come up with anything even half as cool as Wes Burt's work.

These sketches are from the first day or two I was in NZ. The very first pic are some sketches done on the plane ride over....so embarrassingly shit! Its been a long time since I've done any manual sketching. I'll post again showing the later sketches.

Here are some fairly old sketches from last year. I went to an exhibition displaying a lot of bodies that had undergone the plastination process - basically, the bodies' water and fat stores had been replaced with a preservative plastic, keeping them intact. I could see why it was/is such a controversial topic, but it was also really interesting. I thought it would be a good opportunity to get some anatomy studies done...

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Here's another 30 minute speedpaint from work last friday. I'll really have to get round to developing some of these further and take them to finalized pieces. The topic this round was Diablo - a fantasy game from Blizzard.

In other news, tomorrow morning (getting up bright and early at 5:30am... oh yeah!) I'm going to New Zealand with all of the Concept Artists from Krome to attend the Massive Black workshop. Massive Black are one of the top Concept Art studios in the world, based in the US and Shanghai.

An idea of what's to come at the workshop:http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=u_iQVCij2Z4

Monday, November 3, 2008

Speedpaints were always something I found extremely difficult to do - I found them to be more stressful than fun and after doing a few (with really mediocre results) I was starting to give up on the whole idea. I think most of my problem came from the fact that I never really understood how to get ideas down quickly.

Last friday we did some speedpaints at work and it was honestly the first time I enjoyed it. I can't mention this at all without acknowledging the tricks & shortcuts that my lead at work taught me - he walked me through the process step by step which was awesome.

The topic was Gears of War (a topic chosen after we'd watched countless videos of the soon-to-be-released GOW2).

The first pic (blue pic) was the one done at work in 30 minutes. I wanted to retain the process so I did another 30 min speedy (red pic) in my own time earlier tonight. Gotta say I'm pretty stoked with the results and that 30 minute speed paint last friday has opened up some new doors to my every-day working technique. Exciting stuff.